The colonial-era village named Gotham, established by a Norwegian mercenary and later taken over by the British, grew into a thriving center of trade with waves of immigration from Europe to the New World. One of early Gotham’s most prominent residents was Charles Arwin Wayne, who built a considerable fortune, and the sprawling family mansion on a bluff outside of what would become Gotham City. Years later, Solomon Wayne—Charles’ son and a federal judge— commissioned architect Cyrus Pinkney to design and build many of the city’s distinctive gothic spires, a style associated with Gotham since then. Wayne Enterprises remains the most powerful and influential company in the city.

Although Gotham City became renowned as a center for trade, shipping, manufacturing, and finance, the history of the city is also infamously riddled with crime and corruption. The Gotham City Police Department was ineffectual for generations, with officers and politicians known to be on the take from one or more crime bosses. An alliance of criminal gangs practically ruled the city, while ordinary citizens got by as best they could.

Along with stately Wayne Manor, one of Gotham’s other noted landmarks is the Arkham Asylum. The private estate of the Arkham family was converted into a mental hospital for the criminally insane in 1921. The gothic-style former mansion has housed some of Gotham’s most notorious criminals, and many of Batman’s greatest foes.

Bruno Mannheim is the leader of "INTERGANG," A vast criminal organization whose members infiltrate every level of METROPOLIS. Anyone from a key member of the mayor's staff to a copy boy in the DAILY PLANET bullpen might be a spy for INTERGANG. INTERGANG agents are secretive, fanatically loyal and known only to themselves. INTERGANG pulls sophisticated robberies using highly advanced weaponry. They also sell those weapons in GOTHAM.

Born in another dimension and time, Octavia was an adventurous monk, and as a result not a pious as a worshiper of her deity, the God of Law as was expected. She believed in the laws of the order, but just never felt at home. She just could not muster the passion for helping people or doing good works, often believing many of these people should take personal responsibility for their situation. As result, some thought her selfish or too cold-hearted. She trained hard and focused more on combat prowess rather than works of charity.

While observing her work on keeping law and order, agents for God of Tyranny and War decided the monk girl had great potential and could be swayed away from her path to worship him instead. After all, the ideals of her order were not that far removed. The evil god, through some of his high priests, took personal interest as the girl had proven to be a remarkable warrior making her an even more desirable champion of his purposes. Slowly the priests, under false pretenses, began the process of tricking her and seducing her to the evil side of things. She continued her works combating forces of chaos and keeping order, but more and more the companions around her were less concerned about the morals for protecting the innocent.

These new companions and agents of the evil priests sent Octavia on a quest to kill a supposedly blackguard champion who was capturing children and selling them into slavery. In a carefully orchestrated ruse, Octavia and her two cohorts raided the hideout and surprised the guards killing them all and releasing the children. Unfortunately the supposed guards were really knights on a rescue mission and had only just arrived. Both groups battled each other believing their foes to be the slavers. The real slavers, in the pay of the evil priests, had already vacated the premises knowing that this carefully orchestrated encounter’s purpose was to have Octavia kill those too self-righteous knights.

Her quest complete, Octavia was rewarded by her new god and was granted divine powers including her angel-like wings (only black) that could manifest at will whenever she wished. In a cruel twist, her new master revealed his true identity and showed her proof of that the men slain in the slavers’ hideout were in the service of the God of Light.
With the dawning realization of what she had done and the person she had become, Octavia’s heart was torn asunder and she mourned her transformation alone in solitude. During her seclusion while contemplating uncertainty of her fate, her two loyal cohorts were discovered and executed by knights seeking vengeance. Even though they were guilty, she felt that her cohorts had also been tricked and did not deserve to die. A vengeful anger quickly replaced sorrow and self pity; and she systematically stalked and hunted those knights. When she found them each alone, she challenged and killed each one in mortal combat. The paladins of the order these knights belonged to never had proof of her part in their executions, but they harbored suspicions that she might be responsible. However they still wanted her head for her part in the slavers’ hideout slayings.

Her victories had proven her martial skill and the glories her new power could help her achieve. But with these latest enemies’ deaths fresh and the passion for vengeance satiated, Octavia no longer felt driven and could not completely give herself over to the God of Tyranny and War and embrace him in worship. She still did not agree with the philosophy of the God of Light's self righteous knights and their arrogant brand of justice; if only they could see that the world is not black and white, but gray.
To escape the fate of an eternity of infernal servitude and constant battle with the champions of the God of Light, she sought to escape the divine plans for her destiny. With the help of a powerful sorcerer and the fulfillment of a quest to secure his services and the powerful arcane artifact he needed for the ritual; she found a way to leave the blood on her hands behind. As agreed the sorcerer opened a dimensional portal to another plane of existence and she went through ending up in a completely different universe. Despite the significant change of her location, her powers remained undiminished, so she furled her wings away and walked among people of this new world still looking like the young woman that she had been before her fall towards evil. For years she remained inconspicuously observant of the culture and people of her new homeland and adjusted to the strange environment, preferring to remain anonymous until satisfied the dark god had not been able to find her. This new realm apparently had given up worship of the more ancient deities and their power to interfere in her new life appeared to be nonexistent. Feeling free, she allowed herself to determine her own destiny and set about doing just that.

In her travels of this new realm, Octavia came across someone who could offer her a chance to potentially increase her power and help defend herself better should the minions of the God of Tyranny ever find her. This Dr. Kaltzov, an entrepreneurial type individual, was amenable to such an arrangement. Despite him not being entirely truthful when he first met her about his true intentions and mastermind plans, she was not bothered this as she was planning to only use him in return anyway. They both have a wary alliance of sorts based on a lie or two that they both know about, yet choose to let it be a facade of convenience. Dr. Kaltzov offered to create a device able to boost her divine powers, in exchange to keep those bugging heroes out of his lab. Everything was derailed by these self-righteous vigilantes putting their noses where they did not belong. With everything in disarray another chaotic menace, SHADOW, threatens to interfere with their collective plans and they decide to head to Gotham to do something about it.

Background:Even as a child, folks told Ben he was "built like a brick s***house," a phrase which eventually became his nickname, Brick. What they didn't know was exactly how tough Ben was, a fact he kept hidden most of his life at the behest of his mother. When their low-income neighborhood began to get even worse in the wake of Batman's disappearance, however, the young man decided it was time to stop playing nice, and began acting as a neighborhood watchdog / enforcer against the creeping corruption and danger on his streets.